Your school trip stories
Sing-songs on the coach, foreign food, feeling homesick and/ or travel sick were all part of the fun as Yours writer Marion Clarke discovered from readers’ school trip stories
The school outing that made the biggest impression on me was a visit to Stratfordon-Avon where we saw David Warner as Hamlet. It brought what had seemed a rather dull play alive and started my life-long love of the theatre. Nothing at all to do with the leading role being played by a goodlooking young actor, of course!
Some school trips were more than just a day out – Judy Terry’s class travelled to Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex: “We went on an old bone-shaker of a coach and stayed in a b&b not far from the pier. I felt very grown-up when my mum gave me an old purse for my spending money. It was my first time away from home without my parents, but we were allowed to speak to them on the phone daily if we wanted to – even though this often ended in tears because we were homesick!
“Each day we went on a different outing. One was to a printing works where we learned how to set up type and print our own newsletter. Others were to a farm and a fish market where I tried my first – and last! – oyster.”
Instead of going to the seaside which was out of bounds in wartime, Isabel Woznicki’s teacher took the children nearer home: “It was a glorious day so we walked two miles to the river. The whole class assembled on the grassy bank, took off our shoes and socks and paddled in the water. In no time we were all soaked, including the teacher, and there was much hilarity as we lay on the grass to dry off.
“After eating our packed lunches we played rounders, girls versus boys. A weary group walked the two miles back to school, very much envied by all the children who had been doing lessons all day.”
In 1951, the Festival of Britain year, Mavis Howe was one of a group of girls who went to London: “We went to the Tower of London, but didn’t see the crown jewels because they had
gone to be cleaned. The following day we walked past Buckingham Palace and saw Prince Charles in a pram being pushed by a nurse, accompanied by a security guard. Later, our coach took us past a park where he was playing, watched by Princess Anne.”
Margaret Anderson’s school trip was to Fry’s chocolate factory! “In those days you were allowed to sample as much as you liked as well as being given a goody bag to take home. My lasting memory is of four boys in the back seat of the coach all being sick!”
Being sick was always a hazard on school trips. Jacqueline Pugh says when her children went on a junior school outing, there were buckets on the minibus ‘just in case’. They were all given a piece of apple as this was thought to prevent travel sickness. “Once at Southend, the beach picnic took place whatever the weather. The best bit was when the headmistress and two teachers hitched up their skirts and waded into the sea up to their knees to form a protective line which paddling children weren’t allowed to cross!” For many youngsters, a school trip was the first time they left the country, as Mary Scanlan recounts: “When I was ten, our south London primary school took the daring step of going abroad instead of to Kent as usual. None of us had ever been abroad and a four-day trip to Belgium, Holland and France was very exotic.
“What a time we had! Staying in a hotel, eating unusual food (nobody had seen a red pepper or eaten garlic before), practising our rudimentary French, laughing and playing games after lights-out, and lots of sing-songs on the coach.”
It was fun, but Mary was happy to return home, writing in her diary, ‘Bruges and Ostend might be exciting places to visit, but to me plain old Peckham SE15 is the nicest place in the world’.
Doreen Vickery says her school trip to Austria was awesome, although she wasn’t keen on the food: “In the Sixties, travelling overseas from rural north Devon was virtually unheard of. We went by ferry to Ostend and stayed in a huge country house. The beds were hard with only one pillow each, but the scenery took your breath away!
“Evening meals were usually a ghastly yellowish stew. My favourite food was a chunk of bread spread with a layer of jam served with beakers of goat’s milk.”
Edwina Jones went on a cruise that called at exotic ports including Lisbon and Casablanca, but the trip almost ended in disaster: “We went to a market where my
Margaret Anderson’s school trip was to a dream destination for children – Fry’s chocolate factory
friend Susan and I were bartering for a handbag when we realised we had lost our group. Feeling hot and panicky, we turned into a narrow lane and saw two men who beckoned us to follow them, so we did. Suddenly we emerged into a wide open space where we were able to spot our ship. What a relief!”
School trips broadened our horizons in so many ways!